Yeast. Worth a shot? Doesn’t look too hard...

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We have a university here and before I got into brewing I noticed they had all kinds of chemistry stuff in their resale store. Now I plan on buying a stir plate and burner, but no glass... never know what’s been in them... kinda like the girls there. Warm months are always good for sight seeing.
 
when i grow shiitakes and oyster mushrooms, i use a lot steriler environment.....i have a glove box, big blower and HEPA filter....and i use petri dishes, and tape them shut with parafilm...

i'm not sure why he's sterilizing with the flame, but doing all this in open air....
 
bracconiere said:
when i grow shiitakes and oyster mushrooms, i use a lot steriler environment.....i have a glove box, big blower and HEPA filter....and i use petri dishes, and tape them shut with parafilm...

i'm not sure why he's sterilizing with the flame, but doing all this in open air....
Click to expand...

Now that’s way above my pay grade! But I understand about the sterile environment.
 
bracconiere said:
i'm not sure why he's sterilizing with the flame, but doing all this in open air....
Click to expand...
Because a clean room and laminar flow hood cost money and space.
Do you routinely test air quality in your "steriler" workspace to verify a particular ISO classification? ;)

Sounds like a cool setup though, regardless.
 
OpenSights said:
Now that’s way above my pay grade! But I understand about the sterile environment.
Click to expand...

nah my DOE hepa filter that screwed onto a storage tote only cost $30...the blower was given to me...

RPh_Guy said:
Because a clean room and laminar flow hood cost money and space.
Do you routinely test air quality in your "steriler" workspace to verify a particular ISO classification? ;)

Sounds like a cool setup though, regardless.
Click to expand...

nope, and yes, i don't know how to spell...i just let it run for a while and hold a lighter up to my arm holes to make sure i have positive pressure....and i spray it down with bleach solution, get pretty decent clean plates of mycillium....

I've been wanting to use it for koji, just in case the beer cartel starts sterilizing feed barley....

(i don't use a laminar flow hood, but i do have a hefty hepa, and use it for positive pressure in a 'glove box')
 
RPh_Guy said:
Fair enough.

That really is cool. :)

Each brewing gadget I acquire has to be weighed against my wife killing me. When she ups my life insurance I know I've gone too far.
Click to expand...

and i just drown my singleness in alcohol....lol, to each their own, or the grass is always greener....:)
 
RPh_Guy said:
Fair enough.

That really is cool. :)

Each brewing gadget I acquire has to be weighed against my wife killing me. When she ups my life insurance I know I've gone too far.
Click to expand...

Pretty much all my equipment is used, and I have enough to brew three batches at a time... so I’m at the point where new things just blend in...
 
bracconiere said:
i'm not sure why he's sterilizing with the flame, but doing all this in open air....
Click to expand...

Sterilizing the loop and flaming the tube opening are standard microbiological practice. As far as doing it in the open air, we did that in the micro lab all the time, and with a lot of moderately pathogenic organisms (Staph, Strep, Enteric organisms, etc).

This looks like a fairly standard, routine procedure that would pass "standard of care" practices in a hospital....
 
I bought some 20 ml plastic vials online. I take sterile water, microwaved to a boil then cooled. I don't take any huge steps to make a sterile room to work in. I use my stove burner on medium to work beside. I have a medicine syringe. I measure out 5 ml glycerin, 5 ml yeast, and 10 ml water and put that in each vial. I make a slightly over-sized starter with liquid yeast and use that to make 4 vials. I chill them overnight in the fridge, shake them up to mix everything and immediately put them in the freezer. I have them in a Styrofoam box and surrounded by ice packs to counteract the defrost cycle of my freezer.

I have resurrected yeast that I froze in 2012 earlier this year (two different yeasts) That reminds me, I should move them from my refrigerator freezer to my chest freezer so there isn't the defrost cycle to worry about, but that hasn't seemed to be a problem for over 6 years.
 
bracconiere said:
i'm not sure why he's sterilizing with the flame, but doing all this in open air....
Click to expand...

He is not really working in the "open air". The flame produces an updraft of reasonably sterile air. I am not an expert on this, but this is the setup that I see advocated in most yeast culturing references. In some cases, he moves items out of the flame area towards the camera, which you would not do at home.

I have not figured out if I want to move into yeast banking. I have had good luck with harvesting yeast slurry and repitching that, but for that to work best you really need to repitch in a month (maybe 2) after harvesting. I enjoy getting several batches out of a $9 pack of yeast, but not sure the expensive of the equipment and the work to store and propagate a common yeast is worth saving $9.
 
CascadesBrewer said:
He is not really working in the "open air". The flame produces an updraft of reasonably sterile air. I am not an expert on this, but this is the setup that I see advocated in most yeast culturing references. In some cases, he moves items out of the flame area towards the camera, which you would not do at home.

I have not figured out if I want to move into yeast banking. I have had good luck with harvesting yeast slurry and repitching that, but for that to work best you really need to repitch in a month (maybe 2) after harvesting. I enjoy getting several batches out of a $9 pack of yeast, but not sure the expensive of the equipment and the work to store and propagate a common yeast is worth saving $9.
Click to expand...

The vials cost about $10 I think there were 25 in the pack. A bottle of glycerin - about $5 and a medicine syringe - a couple dollars. It does require a step starter, but the first two steps are small and weak. It doesn't add much except time to making a starter which you really should do anyway with liquid yeast.

If I was keeping slurry for more than a few of weeks I would also be making a starter with that.

Also I only brew about once a month so using slurry would mean that I am limited to only a couple of yeast strains or making the starter anyway. I have 13 yeasts in my frozen yeast bank.

I need to brew more often!!!
 
One Eye Ross said:
Sterilizing the loop and flaming the tube opening are standard microbiological practice. As far as doing it in the open air, we did that in the micro lab all the time, and with a lot of moderately pathogenic organisms (Staph, Strep, Enteric organisms, etc).

This looks like a fairly standard, routine procedure that would pass "standard of care" practices in a hospital....
Click to expand...

just saying when i grow mushrooms, if i don't use this thing to create a sterile environment....i get all kinds of other crap growing in the dishes....and the bags...


100_0583.JPG


but yes i know beer is a lot hardier....and strangely, most of my infections, were yeast infections....lol
 
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growing mushrooms is a lot scarier for people than growing yeast for beer. Heck, I did clinical micro for a while, and I won't grow mushrooms. Won't pick wild ones, either. But yeast - easy money. Also, if I were to grow mushrooms, I would follow standard lab practice and wouldn't worry about a box like you have....(for example, Children's Hospital in Seattle has state of the art air filtration for it's ORs, and had to stop using them because of Aspergillus contamination. You will never, ever, be 100% sterile, even in your box.)
 

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